Robotics - LAAS-CNRS

Department rob

Robotics

The robotics department is developing a multi-thematic field of research focusing on the development of perception, decision, movement generation and communication functions for robots, intended to be tested in real, uncontrolled environments. It is equipped with a very complete robotic platform.

head

Philippe Soueres

The department is structured into three research teams which work in synergy and whose areas of expertise are complementary.

The “Gepetto” team, specialist in the movement of anthropomorphic systems, has three research objects: the humanoid robot, the digital mannequin and Human. Its expertise is focused on the planning, generation and control of the movement of these unstable poly-articulated systems. It carries out interdisciplinary activity at the intersection of robotics, neuroscience and biomechanics with a particular interest in the design of artificial muscles.

The activity of the “Robotics, action and perception” (RAP) team, experts in signal processing, is centered on the “perception-action” link, with a focus on vision and hearing. Its areas of research are: detection, segmentation, identification and tracking of people and objects; perception and control in a dynamic environment and the development of integrated sensors. The challenges to be met are taking into account the variability of the environment and the constraints of embedding and real-time calculation. The team develops original solutions emphasizing probabilistic data fusion.

The “Robotics and its interactions” (RIS) team focuses its expertise on interactions with humans and the environment. Its activities cover systems architecture, physical control and interactions, temporal planning and reasoning, motion planning and learning. The methods and algorithms developed are exploited in three main areas: terrestrial and aerial robotics, with a strong focus on multi-robot cooperation and environment modeling, cognitive and interaction robotics and molecular movement.

These three teams maintain close collaboration with each other, as well as with other laboratory teams attached to different scientific departments. Their work is carried out within the framework of a large number of European projects (ESA, FP7, Horizon Europe, EraNet, etc.), national and regional, and direct industrial collaborations. The applications concern a wide range of fields: agriculture, transport, factory of the future, service robotics, home automation and ambient intelligence, virtual reality and animation, surveillance and civil security, planetary and space exploration, biochemistry, etc.

A large number of software developed by the department researchers are distributed in open access (GenoM3, GDHE, OpenPRS, Jafar, HPP, SoT, Pinocchio, etc.).

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RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS

DISCIPLINARY FIELDS

COVERED IN OUR DEPARTMENT

DEPARTMENT TEAMS

The department is composed of 3 research teams: Robotique et Interactions (RIS), Robotique, Action, Perception (RAP) et GEPETTO.

gepetto

Olivier Stasse

The research activity of the Gepetto team is focused on the analysis and generation of movement of anthropomorphic systems. Created in 2006, it quickly became one of the leading teams in humanoid robotics, unanimously recognized for its expertise in movement …

rap

Patrick Danes

The research conducted by the RAP team concerns the design, prototyping, implementation and evaluation of algorithms for: visual perception; sensor-based control and navigation; interactive mobile manipulation; multi-sensor data modeling and fusion.

ris

Simon Lacroix

The "Robotics and InteractionS" team develops a research project on autonomous mobile machines that integrate perception, reasoning, learning, action and reaction capabilities. The challenge is on their capacity to act rationally in dynamic environments to achieve a large variety of …

Latest publications

2025

Journal articles

Ali Srour, Antonio Franchi, Paolo Robuffo Giordano, Marco Cognetti. Experimental Validation of Sensitivity-Aware Trajectory Planning for a Redundant Robotic Manipulator Under Payload Uncertainty. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2025, 10 (2), pp.1561-1568. ⟨10.1109/LRA.2024.3519857⟩. ⟨hal-04816507⟩

Samuel Beaussant, Sebastien Lengagne, Benoit Thuilot, Olivier Stasse. Towards Zero-Shot Cross-Agent Transfer Learning via Latent-Space Universal Notice Network. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2025, 184, pp.104862. ⟨10.1016/j.robot.2024.104862⟩. ⟨hal-04801176⟩

Eliott Lumet, Mélanie Rochoux, Thomas Jaravel, Simon Lacroix. Uncertainty-aware surrogate modeling for urban air pollutant dispersion prediction. Building and Environment, 2025, 267, pp.112287. ⟨10.1016/j.buildenv.2024.112287⟩. ⟨hal-04813685⟩

2024

Journal articles

Quentin Le Lidec, Wilson Jallet, Louis Montaut, Ivan Laptev, Cordelia Schmid, et al.. Contact Models in Robotics: a Comparative Analysis. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2024, 40, pp.3716 - 3733. ⟨10.1109/TRO.2024.3434208⟩. ⟨hal-04067291v3⟩

Nathalie Tarrat, J. Christian Schön, Juan Cortés. Dependence of lactose adsorption on the exposed crystal facets of metals: a comparative study of gold, silver and copper. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 2024, 31, pp.21134-21146. ⟨10.1039/D4CP01559B⟩. ⟨hal-04664324⟩

Simon Wasiela, Marco Cognetti, Paolo Robuffo Giordano, Juan Cortés, Thierry Simeon. Robust Motion Planning with Accuracy Optimization based on Learned Sensitivity Metrics. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2024, 9 (11), pp.10113-10120. ⟨hal-04636547⟩

Eliott Lumet, Thomas Jaravel, Mélanie C. Rochoux, Olivier Vermorel, Simon Lacroix. Assessing the Internal Variability of Large-Eddy Simulations for Microscale Pollutant Dispersion Prediction in an Idealized Urban Environment. Boundary-Layer Meteorology, 2024, 190 (2), pp.9. ⟨10.1007/s10546-023-00853-7⟩. ⟨hal-04425945v2⟩